Beyond the field Linguistic challenges for international athletes Christine Allers May 25, 2010

Chan Ho Park- NY Yankees

Agenda 1)ELL in baseball 2)Interviews and off the field 3) What are they learning? 3)Pedagogical Implications

The landscape and the need Foreign Born Professional Baseball Players % 22%

Coming to America 1)Culture shock 2)Celebrity status, role model, the media 3)Life after baseball

Challenges

Domains

Demonstrate interpreting Look at index card under your chair Watch and listen to demonstration Did Ginna answer the question?

Translators "What I do is write a few words to give me a few key points, so I just mention words for each topic that will kind of trigger my brain to remember what he said during his interview." -Ken Barron, interpreter for Seattle Mariners- Ichiro Suzuki

Who has the power here?

Interviewing- sociological Who has the power? 1)Interviewer 2)Translator 3)Player/interviewee

Why should language learning be addressed? Motivation: to earn more money (endorsements), be in control of their careers Proponents (Mariano Rivera, others) Ease transition challenges

How do they learn?

How do we learn Patterns Input / output Interaction Lowering the Affective Filter Scaffolding Schema activation Personal association & incorporating culture

Pedagogical Implications Sociolinguistics English Language Learners- peeling back the layers Ongoing process Everything can be a language learning opportunity!

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